Anonymous Student Work

I was at my Godfather’s house, playing outside when we wanted to ride bikes. I picked the first one I saw, which turned out to belong to my Godfather’s wife, Krisi.It was a gray racing bike with mountain bike tires, and eighteen different gears, something I had never before used. They have a long driveway so about halfway down it the little ones turned around. Unlike them I wasn’t tired or ready to go back yet so I went off into their huge yard.

When this happened I was in 7th grade and hadn’t had a bike in two years, so I was pretty inexperienced. I nearly ran into a tree while trying to figure out the unfamiliar braking system. I looked up just in time to dodge the tree. Finally I neared the bottom of the hill and the trench in front of the chip and seal rode. If you don’t know what a chip and seal road is, they pour cement, then pour gravel on top, it’s basically gravel that doesn’t move. When I started to pick up speed just feet from the trench, I realized that I still didn’t know how to slow down or stop. When I realized where I was my face was on the rough gravel like street and I felt the worst pain I had ever experienced in my left hip. I pushed the bike off my back and stood up leaving the trench. I hobbled the half mile back up to their house. I didn’t even realize how hard it was to walk, or the head ache I had. When I got up to their house, about 20ft. from the door, I looked down and saw the skin hanging off of my knee, and a shoe that was now soaked in blood. I stumbled faster to the door and opened it. All the blood scared my mom half to death. I looked down again and also noticed that my shirt, like my shoe, was drenched with blood, and then I began to panic. My dad and godfather, who had both been outdoorsman, reacted calmly and carried me to the master bathroom. They removed the small pieces of gravel, and then cleaned it several times. After, my knee had no more debris they moved on to my elbow, where they repeated the same processes. They wrapped both wounds with thick layers of gauze and then loose athletic tape. After the clean-up they asked how I felt before they carried me to the car. I’m not sure what I said but I know that Ihad a dreadful head ache and I couldn’t move my right side at all due in part to the pain in my hip.

My dad drove as fast as he could with our family in the van, weaving through traffic with hazard lights on. It took us about fifteen minutes to get to the Nixa OR. He pulled up to the front door and started to get me out of the backseat when a bitter old gargoyle of a woman walked out of the large automatic doors. “You know we’re closed right?” she asked, not seeming to care what our answer was. My Dad sighed and asked “Can we at least have some Gauze?” She glared at him, and snarled “Closed at six,” and uttered something incomprehensible.As my dad began to load me back into the car, I glanced at the clock, the time blinked, 6:09. He sped into town with the same dangerous, but effective maneuvers on the way to the St. Johns Emergency Room. He made record time, getting there in thirty minutes.

When we got there, he pulled up to the automatic doors, where a nice elderly man met us, and brought out a wheel chair. The gentleman and my father lifted me into the chair, and wheeled me in. I was focused on not screaming from the pain in my leg, now vibrating on account of a pinched nerve. I distracted myself by making unusually thorough observations of the hospital.

I heard a few child like screams muffled out by the shouts and commands of adults who must have been doctors. I heard a lot of nervous chattering, and a lot of crying. It smelled like antiseptic, the classic aura of hospitals. I tasted nothing, my mouth had gone dry. The ceiling was lined with florescent bulbs, with already too-white paneling. There must have been seventy-five people in the room, and most were either sad or panicked looking. Some of the injured and young had fallen asleep, and were the most peaceful looking in the large room.

My mom had pushed me near two small chairs while my dad checked in, and dropped my siblings off with a friend who met them there. We were only in the large room for a few minutes, when someone said something over the intercom and my dad started pushing me. He took me and my mother to a much more comfortable small room. The lights had been dimmed, there were larger chairs, and there was carpeting. There were only two other groups, and we spent a much longer time there so I learned more about them. One was a lovely young woman who went to Missouri state university. She was coached a young soccer team, and she had injured the back of her knee. I felt bad for her because she had to put up with the pain and watch her two toddler daughters.After I had been there for a while her boyfriend arrived, minutes before she entered the rooms. The other party consisted of an old man, sleeping with his head in a corner, and an Indian woman sitting next to him with her face buried in a People magazine the whole time. They were odd, but still seemed nice even though neither of them moved the entire time, except to turn a page.

The worst part of that whole night was the actual Emergency Room. It seemed okay at first, the nurse led us to a nice room that was well lit, but not to bright like the waiting room. It had a T.V., couch, a gurney and all the normal medical supplies. When another nurse came in and removed the bandages, which didn’t hurt as bad as I expected. She then cleaned it and told me she would return with the anesthetic. After twenty minutes she returned, not with the drugs, but with a short, round female doctor. She came up and looked at my knee and said, “Yep, go get ’em sweetie.” The Dr. continued to stare at my injuries as the small blond nurse ran out of the room. The big woman slowly looked up at my parents and said “These abrasions are too large for topical anesthetic; it will have to be injected.” As the woman slowly turned and waddled to the door, my mother shot me a look of pity.

The thin blonde nurse returned with a few syringe and walked to the bedside without saying a word. I tried my hardest not to look until I felt a needle puncture the area that was already in the worst pain. I looked up and shouted “Ow!” and saw a syringe filled with a clear liquid stabbed deep into my knee. At the sight of that I became somewhat weary, and clenched my fist and waited it out. Despite my paramount efforts, I did the same thing, all twelve times. After that the stitches were a breeze, I just felt like a faint tugging back and forth. After the knee was done she moved on to my elbow, which was harder to hold still.

After the procedure I had to get an X-Ray of my hip. Because I hadn’t moved in a while I had forgotten this pain, but getting back into the wheel chair was terrible. A very nice and vaguely familiar women rolled me to a very dark room with a large machine in the middle. I stripped down to my boxers and dawned a heavy, thick apron. First she centered the machine over my knee, then my elbow, then my hip. Even though she was constantly bustling back and forth between the room I was in and the small control room in the back, this was the most relaxing time in this ordeal. She was a very nice woman, and had a calming voice first she showed me a picture of her kids, and talked about them for awhile. She was the only person who didn’t really tell me what to do. When she finished, I put my blood coated shirt and shorts back on and returned to the wheel chair. The Tylenol Three was starting to kick in, and the pain was slowly decreasing. There was a long wait, before the nurse returned with paper work and let us leaves. The final thing I remember was going to the car, leaning my head against the seat and hearing unrecognizable speech as I drifted off into sleep.

Be more descriptive about the accident for one. you weren’t clear and didn’t even talk about going down a hill until you were already down it. Just be descriptive, plain and simple.
Next, fix the grammar. There’s a lot of grammatical mistakes.
Finally, you did a great job describing the scene at the hospital, maybe talk about some emotionality a little bit, if you know what i’m sayin’. Talk about how you felt, what you thought your parents were feeling through their facial expression, etc. Even if you didn’t feel any emotion, you could say “I was completely shocked and couldn’t fully grasp what was going on or how to feel; i just focused on getting home.” or something like that, you know what i’m sizzlin’?

On February 3, 2009 at 7:06 pm Kalena Oakley said:

This was really good! You explained a lot of your experience in great detail, and you explained to us, at times, exactly what you were feeling. It made the reader be able to relate to you. You could have emphasized a little more on some statements like, ” I felt the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life.” You could explain what that pain felt like. Also, I would have liked to know how the X-Rays turned out. With those things said, this was a really great story.

On February 3, 2009 at 7:23 pm Ariel Kresgan said:

Good descritions and good work at making the story graphic enough for the reader to be able to understand and visualize what was going on. At the end, I would recommend adding some sort of follow up about how you healed and if you ever road bikes after that experience.

On February 5, 2009 at 7:12 pm The almighty Megatron said:

The descriptions were very good and I felt as if i had been there when it happened. The only non-descriptive part was the crash, did you flip your bike or roll it or what.

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